I was recently looking to install perl on my windows machine in order to learn perl and CGI scripting. After I'd installed ActivePerl I then had to find a webserver to use.
XAMPP installed and configured both perl and apache in one go, I'd recommend beginners go straight for that if you're just looking to quickly set up a learning environment

Does XAMPP install a c compiler? The reason I ask is that I would suggest going for Strawberry Perl since I have used it for quite some time (for both business and personal use) with no problems. Being able to use CPAN on windows is a great thing, even if you are just starting out. Installing Strawberry Perl is painless.

I think that using the Strawberry Perl installer and installing/configuring Apache would be worth the extra effort since, had the user never installed/configured Apache my themselves (by this I mean configure httpd.conf etc themselves) then IMHO it is good to know how to do this sort of thing.